‘…It’s alive. IT’S ALIVE!’

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/06/2010 (5918 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The  beast that is to become the 2010 Winnipeg Blue Bombers — for most of this winter and spring simply a collection of names listed on a depth chart — is finally about to come to life.

Question now is, after the monster jumps off Paul LaPolice/Joe Mack’s operating table, just how long will it take for it to be able to put one foot in front of the other and begin the trek back to respectability?

Football fans will get their first look at the handi­work of the new LaPolice/Mack regime Wednesday afternoon when the Bombers open their rookie camp, three days of practice that lead into Sunday’s first workout with the entire squad. The club expects 35 CFL rookies and the four quarterbacks — Buck Pierce, Steven Jyles, Adam DiMichele and Alex Brink — to be on the field Wednesday at Canad Inns for the first workout of 2010.

And the message LaPolice will deliver to the newcomers is this: “We want to let the players know there’s not a lot of entitlement here,” he said Tuesday. “We want these rookies to understand, ‘Don’t back down. Take everything and be aggressive on the field and make plays.’ We’ll say this time and time again: the players will determine the depth chart, we won’t.

“Rookies should come here with every opportunity to compete for a starting job.”

The Bombers open rookie camp after having undergone a significant makeover in their foot­ball ops department during the winter, starting with Mack and LaPolice but including a change at quarterback — Michael Bishop was released; Stefan LeFors will likely be suspended on Saturday as he has indicated he will not return — and with the ar­rivals of Pierce, Jyles and Brink. Also expect heated battles for work in the secondary with Lenny Walls cut and Jonathan Hefney now with the Detroit Lions, while there will also be starting jobs available in the linebacking and receiving corps.

“I like the talent we’ve recruited at receiver, we’ve got some guys who have the potential to be really, really explosive,” said Mack. “And our front seven and linebackers… we have some real speed. What I like about everybody we’re bringing in on defence is they all have speed and absolutely have the ability to knock you out. They are really aggressive football players and I’m curious to see how that translates on the field.”

The full Bomber training-camp roster now includes 79 names, meaning the staff will have to make cuts before Sunday’s opening of main camp.

CFL teams are allowed to take 68 players to camp, not including draft picks and Canadians with college eligibility remaining.

“We’ll start doing that right away with our teach­ings with the rookies,” said LaPolice. “We want to be detailed. We want to understand the Canadian Football League and so we’ll be teaching the rookies right from Day 1: here’s how we do things. We’re not going to sugar-coat things for them.”

Meet the recruits

Bomber rookie camp schedule (all practices are open to the public and are held at Canad Inns Stadium)

❚ Wednesday, June 2 — Practice: 3-4:50 p.m.

❚ Thursday, June 3 — Practice: 9:30-11:15 a.m.

❚ Friday, June 4 — Practice: 9:30-11:15 a.m.

❚ Saturday, June 5 — Medical day, no practice.

❚ Sunday, June 6 — Main training camp opens; prac­tice: 8:30-12:45 p.m. (open to season-ticket holders only).

Three keys to opening eyes

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Here’s new coach Paul LaPolice and GM Joe Mack on how rookies can make a good first impression:

❚ 1. Study hard/learn fast: “Listening skills, first and foremost. They’ve got to be able to do what we say. You have to be able to process information quickly. Even though they’re young, they’re going to get tidbits of information early on and we’ll be able to tell after the three practices whether they understand the concepts we’re try­ing to teach them. I’ve had a lot of football players who played for us in the past who aren’t very fast or aren’t big guys, but they’re where they need to be when they’re sup­posed to be there.” — LaPolice.

❚ 2. Consistency/Staying power: “You can’t show up and be great for rookie camp and then we don’t see you ever again. You have to show up every day. You can’t get hurt. And the one thing they cannot expect is, ‘Oh, well I’ll do it in the preseason game’ because you never know…you may only get six or seven plays. You have to make this team with what you do in practice as well as games.” — LaPolice.

3. Effort, effort, effort: ❚ “If I see a guy lagging… it’s a job evaluation, a job interview and if I see that then in the back of my mind I’m wondering, ‘What’s he going to do in a game in the fourth quarter?’ If a guy messed up in a drill, I’d rather it happened while he was going 100 miles an hour than lagging.” — GM Joe Mack

Keep up to date on Bomber camp with updates after every practice on our Bomber Insider Blog at winni­pegfreepress.
com.